Cosy Christmas ✓

12 / home

It had been five days. Five long, tortuous days. Each morning since the year had begun, Connor had woken up wondering if today would be the day and as each one came to an end, he had kissed an increasingly irritable Posy goodnight and begun his wondering all over again. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe he would wake up in the middle of the night to her shaking his shoulder, rousing him from a deep and dream-filled sleep and tell him it was time. Those were the thoughts that filled his head as he drifted off each night: the first three had been spent in his own bed but on the nights of the fourth and fifth, Connor had found Posy's sofa to be a decent place to sleep. He didn't want her to be alone, and she didn't want to be alone, but her spare room was more of a storage space at the moment, something to be dealt with long after the baby was born, and that day could not come soon enough.

Now it was the sixth, and while Cass made supper with her brother's help, Posy paced around her kitchen with her hands on her back and a frown on her face.

"You should rest," Connor said, watching her over his shoulder as her brow furrowed into a deeper frown. Yet another day was coming to an end, the sky pitch black outside as the novelty of the new year wore off and life had returned to normal. People were trawling back at work, including both of her parents, and in one week Connor was due to return to his job, the same day that Cass would resume her second year of university.

"If I rest, the baby rests," Posy said, as she continued to pace. "I know I said I wasn't ready to be a mother but I am beyond ready to have this baby so I don't want it resting." She pointed at Cass, who was using her phone to follow a recipe. "What do I need to do?" she asked. "Look it up. Tell me, right now."

Cass obliged, having learnt a couple of days ago that no good came of joking with Posy since her due date had come and gone. "Ok," she said, loading up the first article. "When was your due date again?"

"The second," Posy said, and Cass winced. "What?"

"Well, apparently full term is up to forty-two weeks," she said. "So I guess you could be waiting another ten days."

"Fuck off." Posy shook her head, her pace increasing. "I am not waiting another ten fucking days. I want this thing out of me. Can I eat something? Do something?"

Cass frowned at the page, scrolling through a paragraph on pregnancy and labour before she got to a bullet point list of tips and read them out. "Pineapple, apparently. And curry. Well, I was going to add some chilli to this, so that might help."

"Extra chilli," Posy said, her eyes hard. "Make that the spiciest thing you have ever made. Do I even have any pineapple?" She looked at Connor with that question, eyebrows raised, as though he knew her kitchen inside out.

"I have no idea," he said, and she let out a long sigh.

"Can you look, please?" She pushed her hair off her face with both hands, clasping them behind her head. Connor opened the cupboard that he had begun to fill with tinned goods, trying to bring a little organisation to Posy's life before it was thrown into disarray, and rifled through in the vague hope that there was a long lost tin of pineapple in there. Considering she had only moved in a month ago, however, that was unlikely.

"It says you can climb stairs, and go for a walk," Cass said, continuing to scroll through the article. "I don't know, Posy, it basically just says that the baby will come when it's ready." She pulled an apologetic face and brought the recipe back onto her screen. Posy planted both hands on the kitchen counter, leaning forward and swaying from side to side, and Connor stood beside her with one hand on her back.

"The time'll come," he said, rubbing her back, and she dropped her head to the counter with a sigh. "It'll be fine."

"Easy for you to say," she muttered. "You're not counting down the days until you have to force a person out of your vagina." With a groan, she stood straight and tied her hair in a bun at the nape of her neck. "I need to pee."